Of Snowfalls, Firewhisky, and Mistletoe
by Anise
Summary: Ginny knows that she shouldn't meet Draco in secret- especially not in the Forbidden Forest in the middle of a snowstorm. But fate feels differently...
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Here it is, y'all—Chapter One! This is the Secret Santa fic for Meglette, and the prompts were Hogwarts Era, Firewhisky, and mistletoe. And there will be more. Enjoy! J

The wind whistled through the trees and lashed the snow against their thickly packed trunks in vicious eddies of white. The new snow was falling faster, too, steadily darkening the gray air. The flurries were threatening to turn into a storm. Blundering her way along what was laughably called a path, Ginny Weasley thought, and not for the first time, that the Forbidden Forest had been given that name for a good reason.

Maybe she ought to have paid more attention to it. But it was too late now.

"Lumos," she whispered again, her wand drawn, and again, the tip of her wand flickered feebly. An Explosion hex probably wouldn't have made much difference to the growing darkness. It had been only eleven o'clock when she had stolen quietly away from the Gryffindor common room; it couldn't be much later than noon now, but the darkening sky didn't seem interested in abiding by the amount of sunlight the clock claimed it should have.

She shouldn't even be here, thought Ginny, shouldn't be meeting him, shouldn't be doing any of this, and should have stayed in her room in the Gryffindor dormitory for a much-needed nap. Except...

Except that she couldn't have fallen asleep. She would only have kept thinking about what she'd learned that day, about what had happened to Ron, whatever that exactly even was. About why her brother hadn't told her, and neither had Harry or Hermione, and she'd had to spy and ask questions and get disturbing scraps of answers. No, she was too angry at them all to let herself sleep, and the worst part was that if she showed her anger, then they'd know that she knew what they had clearly meant her to be ignorant of.

Ginny paused. They were supposed to meet at the cluster of beeches that was known as the Three Sisters, where they had already met several times before. This landmark had always been easy to find in the past. Not now, she thought grimly. And maybe they'd be better off, both of them, if they didn't meet.

Or, wait… did she see three trees just off the path?

Ignoring the tiny voice of reason that told her it would be a much better idea to retrace her steps back to the Hogwarts castle, Ginny set out for the cluster of trees. If she'd listened to reason, after all, she never would have started meeting him in the first place. And she certainly wouldn't have replied to the note he'd somehow managed to slip under her plate at breakfast that day, asking her to meet him in the forest. Where they'd have more privacy; where they could talk. Ginny supposed she'd known perfectly well that talking was highly unlikely to be all they'd do. They had met in abandoned classrooms, in broom closets, on deserted staircases… but always in places where their hearts thumped with urgency, where her breath was caught with nervousness, because they both knew that they might be spotted at any moment. And that was the one thing that must not, could not, be allowed to happen.

Especially not after what Ginny had learned today.

She hadn't found the trees. She couldn't see the path behind her, either. Stupid, stupid. The words rang in her brain again and again. If she got lost and froze to death in the Forbidden Forest because she'd been moronic enough to meet him there, then she deserved what she got, she thought savagely. Ginny shoved her hands out blindly and encountered a tree trunk.

Something made her stop then, although she wasn't quite sure why. It wasn't the smooth bark of a slim, upright beech. When she peered closer, she could see that she'd found a gnarled, twisted oak, ancient beyond imagining. A shiver went over her that had little to do with the cold and the wind and the snow. Any tree like this would have been marked out as a conduit for powerful magic; it would have been visited by History of Magic classes during the section about druids and elves in the British Isles. This tree might have been a sapling when the Old People joined hands and danced around its trunk in a fairy ring. It might have guarded the altar of sacrifice where Druids offered up traitors to the revengeful face of the Dark Moon Goddess. It might have—

*Oh, stop it, you idiot!*

Her hand kept blundering; she wasn't sure what she was trying to find. But then she did find something. Her icy fingers encountered a gloved hand. She heard a low, startled sound.

"Ginny, you idiot," said a low, drawling voice, and the hand yanked her closer, and she was pulled into the arms of Draco Malfoy.

She was so relieved to see him. Too much relief, too much happiness, a flare of joy, and her anger at herself for feeling all these forbidden things put an edge to her voice.

"I suppose I am an idiot," she said. "Or I would've known what a bad idea it was to agree to meet you here!"

"Maybe," he said, pulling her closer still, until she could feel his heartbeat under his warm fur-lined cloak, and his strong arms went all the way around her, and she couldn't be angry anymore.

"Do you know where we are?" she finally asked, her eyes closed, her face snuggled against his warm chest, her head hidden by his cloak.

He shrugged. "Haven't the faintest."

She groaned. "Are we going to freeze to death out in the snow?"

"If it comes to that, no." He disengaged one arm from her, reluctantly, she thought and hoped, and pulled a small black stone from one pocket, laying it in the palm of his hand.

"What's that?" Ginny peered at the stone. The surface was smooth and dull, without lustre, but it glinted with ruby lights inside the rock.

"A Finding stone," Draco replied. "There are quite a number of abandoned buildings in the forest, and we're bound to be close to one."

"I've never heard of a Finding stone."

"Ah, no, you wouldn't have done. It isn't included in any class at Hogwarts," said Draco, rubbing the stone's surface with his forefinger. He'd taken off his glove, and his skin looked very pale.

*Why do you know about it then*, Ginny thought but did not ask. She wasn't about to ask. She didn't want to know. It wasn't the first time she'd thought something like this around Draco Malfoy. How did he know some of the magic he knew? She thought that she was better off not finding out, but not knowing, or at least not trying to find out, was so antithetical to her nature that it was a constant irritant to her.

"Here's one," said Draco. He pointed to a glowing red spark on one side of the stone. "It's very close, too." He began to walk through a clearing in the trees, holding her close to him, his cloak draped around her shoulders.

A stone building appeared in front of them, a small structure that might have been a hunter's lodge. Ginny looked at it suspiciously as he started to open the front door, which was not locked. It all seemed too convenient.

"Did you set this entire thing up?" she demanded.

Draco turned back to her, his hand on the doorknob. "Of course not," he said.

He had, of course.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

They walked into the lodge. Draco cast quick, surreptitious glances around the main front room with its fireplace heaped with logs, its walls paneled in dark knotty wood. One door led to a small kitchen on one side, he knew, another to a small but luxurious washroom, and a third to a bedroom with a canopy bed draped in red hangings. He did not want Ginny to know that *he* knew what all those rooms were, or that there were so many of them. He needed to look as surprised as she did, although when he saw her flushed face upturned to his, he wasn't so sure that he had succeeded.

But then, everyone knew that Malfoys didn't show their emotions on their face, so perhaps it wasn't suspicious.

But then again, Ginny was able to read him as nobody else ever had, so perhaps it was suspicious, after all.

The room was still and chilly; the inner space almost felt colder than outside. Draco drew his wand and cast a swift Warming charm. But he felt no spark of magic, and the air remained icy. He frowned.

"Let me try," said Ginny. She had no more success. "What's going on?"

Draco was wondering about that question himself, and he would have liked to have known if it had anything to do with the fact that it was a Malfoy lodge, although he was not about to share that speculation with Ginny. "I don't know," he said. "But it's quite possible that we're in a structure associated with a more ancient magic than anything you'll find at Hogwarts. Remember the oak."

Ginny nodded. "We'll have to do this the old-fashioned way, then. Don't worry, I know how to light a fire." She moved to the cold hearth, wrapping her arms around herself, disengaged from him. He felt the spot of coldness where her warm body had been. "So you didn't know anything about this cottage?" she asked.

"Lodge," Draco answered without thinking. She tended to have that effect on him.

Ginny turned back to him from where she knelt before the hearth, her dark auburn eyebrows raised. "Oh?" she asked. "it sounds like you *do* know something about it, Draco."

He shrugged. "I knew that there were a number of hunters' lodges in the forest at one point. Mostly near the ancient trees. It was only logical."

"Hmmph," she said, heaping tinder on the logs. "We'll be lucky if this chimney isn't blocked." She reached for a long match in the holder next to the hearth, struck it, and began the process of getting the kindling started. "You shouldn't think I'm doing this for you, you know. It's just that I know you won't have any idea how to get a fire started. You probably have house elves at home specifically for the purpose."

She was more or less right, so he just shrugged again. "I hoped we'd find something like this, Ginny. It's far preferable to freezing to death, would you agree?" It was best to stick as close to the truth as possible while still bending it; that was a point he had learned long ago.

The corners of her mouth quirked up. "Okay. It's better than that, I'll agree."

The fire caught then and began to blaze, rewarding her painstaking work. She moved back from the hearth and immediately began to shiver again. "It's still so cold. I don't know how long it'll take for this fire to really warm up the entire space."

Draco was sitting on the couch now, and he wondered exactly how to segue into the next phase he'd planned. He had considered a number of phrases to say at that moment, but had quickly discarded them all as either too stupid or too obvious. *I'll keep you warm, Ginny*? No. That sounded like an idiotic pickup line, and no matter how fragile and indefinable their relationship was, they were past that. *Yes, I know, it takes some time. The bedroom warms up much faster.* Oh, no; that sentence made it more than clear that he knew the layout of this lodge.

Not that he'd been here before. He'd only been told about its location and use. But it had belonged to the Malfoys for a very long time. He knew that he could easily summon house-elves with fur rugs and warming drinks, but that action would give away the truth like nothing else.

In the end, he wordlessly held out his arms to her. After a moment's hesitation, she got up and sat next to him, cuddling against him, letting her warmth seep into his body as he tried his best to warm her.

"My family used to have a hut that was a bit like this," she whispered against his shoulder. "It was on our property, and I think it was meant for hunters, too. It burned down, of course. When our house did, I mean. But you wouldn't know about that."

He'd known, all right, but not until after the fact, when he'd found out that his crazy aunt Bellatrix was involved. His head had been filled with a whine of panic he'd done his best to conceal, until he found out that Ginny was all right.

"I'm sorry," he said, quite honestly.

Ginny smiled faintly. "Draco Malfoy, apologizing for something he didn't even do. Who would believe it? But I'll never tell anyone, don't worry."

She was speaking about more than his apology, and he knew it. He bent his head down to hers, brushing his lips softly against the top of her hair, feeling the fine silky texture.

"My family has a number of lodges like this as well, on our property," he said, deciding, again, to stick as closely to the truth as possible. "They're very like this one. It's a standard design." He hoped that fact would cover him just in case he slipped up and revealed that he knew a bit more about this particular lodge than he ought to.

"Did you ever go to any of them?" asked Ginny.

"Yes, with my grandfather, Abraxas," said Draco. That was true, too. He'd been taken on hunting trips as a child with his grandfather, that tall giant of a man who always seemed to be laughing, merrier than any other Malfoy he'd ever known… until it came time to be serious, when his grandfather could be more imposing, more sinister, than Draco's own father could ever dream of being.

Abraxas Malfoy had told him about this place the last time that Draco had ever seen him, when he lay dying, when he'd whispered the secrets that Malfoys passed on to each other on their deathbeds. The locations of certain secret manuscripts, valuable treasures, priceless blackmail material on other pureblood families and government officials, and the like. Near the very end, he'd told Draco about the hunter's lodge in the Forbidden Forest.

"A very good place to take certain… friends," Abraxas had whispered when the two of them were alone in his elegantly appointed chambers, Lucius and Narcissa and various cousins all ordered away. "Friends that one might wish to keep secret, that is."

Draco had broken out in a cold sweat he devoutly hoped was not obvious. "Oh?" he'd squeaked.

"Yes," Abraxas has said. "Friends such as… the Weasley girl, for instance."

"She's no friend to me; none of the Weasleys are," Draco managed to say.

"Ah. But she will be, and soon. I have forgotten that the Sight did not descend to your father, nor to you," said Abraxas. "Suffice it to say: I have seen. Not everything that will or could be, but enough to know that the two of you have destinies that may become intertwined. Will she become far more than a friend to you, I wonder? The future is strangely obscured on that question."

Draco could have said that there was nothing between himself and Ginny Weasley as of yet, that the few times they'd spoken to each other their words had been angry, or that he'd been watching her since she was thirteen years old but she despised him and every other Malfoy on earth. But he did not. He knew that Abraxas was not speaking of what now was, but of what could be. And he hadn't even bothered to deny that, not when his grandfather's shrewd old eyes were on him, measuring, weighing, judging, and seeing far too much of the truth. But he was not sure what his grandfather was asking.

"Will she be only your plaything, and nothing more?" Abraxas had asked then. "Or will there be more between you? What is your desire, Draco?"

"Uh…" Draco hadn't known whether to lie or tell the truth. More than that—he hadn't known, himself, what the truth actually was, or would ever be.

"The Weasleys are purebloods, from time out of mind," Abraxas had said then. "A respectable family indeed. Their stock will ride very high after our side loses the war."

Draco had given a violent start. "We… you really think we'll lose it, grandfather? How can you say that?"

Abraxas had laughed soundlessly, a laugh that ended in a cough. "Oh, I know. I have seen more than your father could ever imagine, and he is living in a bit of a fool's paradise. The Dark Lord will fall, and a good thing too. But the Malfoys must protect themselves…" He beckoned for Draco to lean down close to him, and Draco did.

Even in this sickroom, on this deathbed, his grandfather had still smelled of woodsmoke and leather and the outdoors, a vigorous smell. "There is very little time," Abraxas had whispered. "So listen closely. Protect the Malfoys. Do not become more involved in the affairs of the Dark Lord than you can help. If you are compelled to do so, then you must act cunningly, performing the required tasks half-heartedly, pretending to be far more dedicated to the cause than you in fact are. Trust no-one. A Malfoy can trust no-one… or close to it. Perhaps you can trust Ginny Weasley, however… take her to the lodge in winter, near the ancient oak, and then you will learn… take her beneath the mistletoe…"

Abraxas had gone into another coughing fit then, and the door had opened, Lucius Malfoy striding in, looking furious. The moment of confidence and secrets had ended, and Draco had been pushed aside.

But he had heard, and he remembered.

"I never went to our lodge," Ginny said in his ear, breaking the memory and pulling him back to the present. "I never had the chance to. George only told me about it. I wish I'd gone, while… while it was still there." She shivered again, although he thought that she must be warming up by now. "I don't want to think about things like that," she said. "I don't want to talk about them."

"Neither do I," said Draco quite truthfully.

"It's still not very warm," said Ginny, which was true as well. "Let's move closer to the fire." She got up and walked to the fur rug on the hardwood floor, sitting down and looking back at him. Draco joined her, trying to conceal the surge of excitement that had gone through him at her suggestion. He'd been wondering exactly how he would get her to manage to do that exact thing.

She lay down on one side, elbow propping up her head, and she studied his face. He looked back at her, the flushed pale skin scattered with freckles, her full pink lips and high cheekbones, her dark golden eyes that studied him now, seeming to look too closely into his soul. Even though he wasn't entirely sure he had one. He reached down and caressed her face, and she closed her eyes in pleasure. His other hand skimmed along her ribs, her side, the curve of her waist, and then came to rest on her hip. For the moment, Draco decided to go no further. That would be the obvious move.

Ginny grinned up at him after a few moments. "So you *didn't* lure me here to seduce me, Draco?"

"No, but I might change my mind; it all depends. Would the attempt work, do you think?" he asked.

She only giggled at him, and he was not sure what to say. He found that he didn't want to seduce her at the moment, although he rather thought that a number of Malfoys had done exactly that with unsuitable girls they'd brought to this very lodge. On reflection, Draco realized that he hadn't been sure, himself, of his own motives in bringing her here. Except that his grandfather had told him that he should, had shared that secret with him, or had begun to do so. Whatever Abraxas Malfoy might have meant when he said that Draco would learn whether or not Ginny could be trusted by bringing her to this lodge, he had not had the chance to explain it. Draco couldn't even be sure that this was what his grandfather had meant in the first place.

"How was your day?" he blurted, knowing that he sounded a bit thick.

She smiled, but a faint shadow seemed to fall over her face, and she did not respond at once. Draco felt a sudden chill of unease. Nothing ought to have happened as yet. Nothing might ever happen, in fact. Even in his own mind, he did not dare to shape the idea more clearly, the details of what had happened, and what was happening, and why. Ginny always saw too much of him as it was.

And she *couldn't* know. He was sure of that. But as the silence stretched on past the moment it ought to have lasted, he began to be afraid that he might be wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially the wonderful R3.0! BTW, the original prompt asked for Hogwarts-era, so this is set during Draco's sixth year. I'm not completely sure exactly when various events took place, so this is basically set right around the winter holidays, either a little before or a little after. It's before Ginny started dating Harry. I can't spell out anything else, because that would give too much away! ;)

"Now, that's a question you've never asked me before," said Ginny at last. She raised her head, and the shadow was gone, or at least beaten back. Draco decided to believe that it had never been there at all.

"No, I suppose I haven't," said Draco.

No, he hadn't, because there had never been time. There was a bit of time now, and he realized that he wanted to use it in this way, at least at the beginning.

Afterwards, he would try to remember exactly what she had said, and what he had answered He never could. But he remembered the play of the firelight on her hair, the dark auburn lashes shadowing her cheekbones, the way the tips of her white front teeth showed when she spoke. And how much pleasure he took in simply talking to her, and listening to her. That, he did remember.

"So then what happened?" Draco asked, after a particularly amusing story about Gryffindor girls concocting love potions to snare Harry Potter.

"They went on and on about it for at least an hour, and then I was looking for Ron, because I had a question about a Quidditch feint he used to use, and I wanted him to show it to me. But…" A shadow passed briefly over her face.

Draco felt a chill that had nothing to do with the room. _She can't know_ , he assured himself. _She can't have any idea. Well, unless it reached someone whom she knew… but that's ridiculous. Slughorn undoubtedly ended up with it, exactly as I thought he'd do, and it's a good job I was out of the castle at the time._

A savage gust of wind suddenly lashed the sides of the lodge. An icy blast roared down the chimney, and the fire sputtered, shrank, and died. A cloud of smoke eddied into the room. Draco yanked Ginny back from the rug, and they both stumbled to their feet.

"Ugh. I was afraid that would happen." Ginny glared at the cold hearth. The air in the front room was already growing icy. "And the storm's worse than ever. We can't go out…" She glanced at the two doors on the other walls. "There must be other rooms. Do you think any of them have a fireplace? Maybe they weren't all affected."

"This sort of lodge always has other rooms, and I'd imagine that they do have fireplaces," Draco said in a neutral tone. But wait—would that kind of tone arouse her suspicions even more? It was damned inconvenient to be around someone who could read him as easily as Ginny Weasley could do.

"There's no time like the present to find out, then." Ginny grabbed a red and green plaid quilt from the couch and tied it around herself so that she looked like a badly wrapped Christmas package.

"Er—" Draco followed her, unsure which room she should be steered towards, or if he knew enough to make a good choice. He *thought* that he remembered the layout of the lodge as his grandfather had described it, but for all he knew, he hadn't been told everything. * _Dear gods, please don't let her find one of the house-elf dungeons_.* Malfoy Manor had several of those, so there was no telling what they might encounter here.

The door that Ginny opened led to a small, dark kitchen with one window over a sink. Draco felt relief until he saw that the hearth in the corner was boarded up. *Lovely,* he thought, heart sinking. *What if that's true of the bedroom as well?*

"This doesn't look very hopeful," said Ginny. She began opening and closing cupboards, moving along the wall and then under the sink.

"Er… what are you doing?" Draco ventured to ask. The Manor had many storage rooms, and some of them still held antiquated house-elf torture equipment. It hadn't been used in over a hundred years to his knowledge, and it all should have been got rid of, but magical items had a disconcerting way of disappearing and reappearing without notice. He couldn't rule out the possibility that the same thing might happen at the lodge, which was, after all, another piece of Malfoy property. There were certainly many things at the Manor that he never would have wanted Ginny to see or know about.

"Looking for some sort of other heating source," said Ginny. "Magic doesn't work at this lodge, which means that whoever built it might have included an alternate one, in case the fireplaces failed. Maybe a kerosene heater…"

Draco couldn't help smirking. "Do you really see fairies using a kerosene heater?"

"I haven't thought that part through yet," she admitted. "And how do you know this was built by fairies?"

"I don't," he said, honestly enough.

"Maybe it was a hunter who wanted to hide the lodge from Muggles," said Ginny, her head and shoulders buried in a cupboard and her voice muffled. "Parts of the forest are right up against Muggle land, you know."

"That's very possible," said Draco, happy that she seemed to be headed on the wrong tack entirely. He started rummaging in cupboards too, not holding out much hope that he'd find anything useful. But the activity gave him a few moments to think.

The other door had to lead to a bedroom, which was perfect, as far as he was concerned. But what would they do if the fireplace in the bedroom didn't work? Neither one of them had been able to cast a Warming charm. He was fairly certain that he'd read something once about how Muggles kept warm in emergency situations in the wilderness, though. It had involved naked bodies and all available blankets, as he recalled, and the idea held some interesting possibilities…

His hand touched something cold and metal, and he drew it out of the cupboard and peered closely in the faint gray light from the window. It was a silver hip flask with the Malfoy crest engraved on its surface. Firewhisky, it had to be; he would have bet on it.

Ginny sat back on her heels and gave a discouraged sigh. "There isn't anything."

"That's all right," said Draco, giving her his hand to help her up. "There's at least one more room. Something tells me that we'll get lucky."

There was no such thing as luck, as far as Draco was concerned. If there were, then he never would have got caught up in the events of his sixth year, or trapped into the terrible promises he had been forced to make. The universe was a blind and pitiless place, in his opinion. But there were moments when the indifference of chance happened to align with human desires. When he opened the door to the second room, he knew that this was just such a moment, and that it might as well be called luck, after all.

It was a small bedroom, almost completely filled by a huge canopy bed of dark walnut draped with thick red curtains. There was a fireplace in the wall at the foot of the bed. And best of all, a fire was already lit, the flames crackling and sending out faint tendrils of warmth into the room.

Ginny frowned. "Did you light that, Draco?"

"Of course I didn't," he said, quite truthfully. "I've been with you every moment, Ginny."

"Hmmph," said Ginny, the corners of her mouth turning up in the way he liked best. "Well, there's so much magic in this forest that nobody understands, I suppose."

"Let's not look a gift hippogriff in the mouth," said Draco. He moved to the end of the bed, wondering exactly how to handle the next few moments. There clearly wasn't anywhere to go besides the bed, and after a short hesitation, Ginny sat down on the end. She scooted up slightly, gathering the thick red coverlets around herself.

"These are like ice!" She shuddered. "That fire looks pretty, but I don't know if it's putting out any heat at all."

He moved up next to her, half-sitting and half-lying, taking her hands in his and rubbing them.

"Your fingers are so cold," he said.

She looked down at him with a sort of suspicious half-smile. "You're getting ideas, aren't you?"

"Only good ones." Draco moved on to rubbing her forearms, pulling her closer by doing so.

"All right. I'm only interested in not freezing to death, Draco. You needn't think this means you can try anything," Ginny said primly.

Draco had already known that he shouldn't assume any such thing, because Ginny would not be so easily had.

"I'll treat you like my maiden great-aunt, if you like," he said, sliding up in the bed so that he could stretch out full length, opening the covers and holding them wide.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "It doesn't need to be quite *that* extreme. Do you actually have a maiden great-aunt? You've probably made her up."

"You cast doubts upon my honesty, and that cuts me to the quick," said Draco in an overly prim voice of his own. "I do, I assure you." She slid under the blankets; he felt the warmth of her body at once, seeping into the cold bed. She was not quite touching him at any point, but her body was millimeters away from his. He tried to keep his voice even.

"Great-aunt Walpurgis Malfoy turned one hundred and twenty-three last month," he said. "I distinctly remember every detail of her birthday party. She was wearing a magenta robe trimmed with bright green lace, her wig was piled on her head in a giant pompadour, and her laugh sounded as much like a whooping crane with chest congestion as ever. She wasn't satisfied with the way that we all had sung 'Happy Birthday' to her, so she spent most of the evening singing it herself to various accompaniments. She forced house-elves to play on piano, harpsichord, and finally flugelhorn, if I recall correctly."

"You're lying," said Ginny. "And it's freezing." She moved so that she was facing him. "And this still doesn't mean anything, so you'd better not think it does, Draco Malfoy."

Draco felt his heart pounding faster. "I wouldn't dream of it. Then she insisted on kissing all the males in the room—I got one on the cheek, by the way, and it brought a Suction hex to mind—and spent the rest of the evening sitting in the corner in a rather passionate tete a tete with her lesbian lover."

"I don't believe a word you say," said Ginny.

"You should," said Draco. "Every word is true." As indeed, it was. He liked being able to tell the truth whenever possible, at any point except when they touched on the topic of the thing he was trying hardest to conceal. He wasn't even sure, himself, of exactly what the central secret was in this situation, and the question consumed him. Was it that he'd brought her here and yet had no intention of admitting it was anything other than an accident? Was it that he was fumbling towards some kind of test of what his grandfather had told him, the idea of bringing Ginny Weasley here in order to learn if he could trust her, even though he didn't know what that test might be? Or was it simply that he wanted more from her than she'd yet given him? And if so, what was that?

He certainly knew one thing he wanted from her. He was a sixteen- year-old-boy who had had a prolonged taste of passionate fulfillment over the summer at the Crystal Palace and then denied himself ever since. She was a pretty girl in bed with him, one he'd met in secret for many weeks by now, one he'd kissed and touched only minutes earlier. Of course he'd want to go much further than that, to go as far as she would allow him to do. But that was only natural.

So did he want more than that? Was this elusive, undefined thing what he really wanted more than anything else?

Ginny finally dropped her eyes from his, and he realized just how intently he had been staring at her, and for how long. She pulled the coverlets so that they were closely draped around them both. "It's still freezing. Is that even a real fire?"

"I really don't know," said Draco, and indeed he did not.

She moved further towards him and laid her head on his chest. He saw by the faint orange firelight that she was smirking. She'd certainly heard his heart thump hard enough to feel as if it might burst out of his chest at any moment.

Slowly, Draco reached up and caressed her cheek. She closed her eyes, and he trailed his fingers down her neck.

"Warmer?" he whispered.

"A little," she whispered back, eyes still closed. "I wish I had something warm to drink."

That was an opening if there had ever been one. "I've got something, actually," said Draco. "It was in one of the cupboards."

"Really? What?"

"Firewhisky, I think. Maybe you'd better not—"

"I've had it before," Ginny interrupted him. "I'll be fine. Give it to me, please."

Draco nodded and handed her the silver flask. She raised her head slightly, took a swig, and gasped, almost choking.

"Are you all right?" asked Draco, slightly alarmed. For all he knew, the Firewhisky that had been left in a Malfoy hunting lodge might be considerably more powerful than normal.

"I… yes, it's okay. Just give me a second." She ran her hand along the back of her mouth and took a deep breath. Then she took a more cautious sip. "I tried Firewhisky at an illegal party in Hogsmeade last month… I don't remember it being as strong as this, though."

She was looking at the flask, and if she turned it around, she would see the Malfoy crest on the other side, Draco realized with considerable alarm. There was no reason why she should recognize it even if she did, of course—except for the fact that the name was emblazoned at the top. But the light in the bedroom was so faint that he himself would never have guessed what the crest was if he hadn't noticed it in the kitchen. The bedcurtains were mostly shut, and the window was heavily draped, so there was only the flickering firelight. The etching was faint too, worn away by age. Surely she couldn't read his name on the crest. And he wasn't about to find out.

"Let me try it, then," said Draco, taking the flask away from her. She shrugged, and he relaxed, deciding to think no more about the possibility. He had nothing against Ginny lowering her inhibitions a bit, all right; more than a bit, but he certainly didn't want her drunk. Whatever happened between them tonight- and he himself was still far from sure what that could or would be—he wanted her fully aware.

He took a long drink of the Firewhisky, savoring the smoky, complex flavor. The colors in the room were sharper, the fire warmer, and Ginny's hair brighter and richer where it fell across his chest, her skin more fragrant. He could almost tease out the scent of flowers on her neck. Everything was heightened, but he felt no loss of control, which was exactly how he wanted it.

Ginny sipped at the flask again, and he felt a bit uneasy. He took the flask by its neck, feeling her warm fingers under his. "That's enough, Ginny. You don't want to get drunk, do you?"

She gave a strange little laugh. "Maybe I do. Maybe I would like it."

He took the flask away from her, capped it, and laid it on the bedside table. "Well, I wouldn't."

She looked up at him. "I suppose I wouldn't either. I want to remember every minute of this, Draco, and when people drink, they seem to forget things."

"What do you want to remember, Ginny?" His hand reached out to her head, stroking behind her ears.

"This time, here," she said.

"This time with me?" His fingers trailed down, lingering at the spot where neck met collarbone.

"Yes," she whispered. "This time with you."

Draco's fingers traced the line where her smooth skin met the collar of her sweater and blouse, wondering what to do next. Neither one of them had yet removed a bit of clothing, although her cloak had fallen back and become entangled with the red coverlet. The top button of her blouse was such a tiny distance from his hand. He could reach over and undo that first button, and then his fingers could slip inside. They had groped each other just a bit the last time they had met, but there had been time for no more. Now, there was. The storm was still building strength. They had all the time in the world, and he could faintly feel her warm skin under her blouse. If she would let him undo her buttons, he could feel her bare flesh at last.

Their eyes met for a long moment. Ginny reached up for the clasp of his cloak, pulling it open, and then she winced.

"What?" murmured Draco, feeling a surge of excitement that quickly turned to concern.

Ginny held up her hand. Her forefinger had a drop of blood. "I don't know. I pricked myself on something… I think it was in your pocket."

Draco reached down, and as soon as he touched the prickly thing he'd been carrying, he remembered what it was. He held out the green sprig with its red berries.

"Mistletoe," said Ginny. "It was from the oak outside, wasn't it?"

Draco nodded.

"You thought you'd get me to kiss you by holding it over my head?"

"Er…" Draco wasn't quite sure what to say.

"You don't expect me to wait around, do you?" She took it from his hand, keeping her eyes on his. Then she raised her own arm, dangling it over his head. "There. Now I've done it. So you don't need to decide whether or not you will."

Her face was beautiful in the firelight, her skin creamy and soft, dappled with light and darkness, her eyes dark and deep. The mistletoe, that most pagan of all plants, hung suspended over her head. So he leaned in and kissed her, knowing it was what he wanted to do more than anything else in the world.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially R3.0 and PlutoniumBunny! :)

Okay, I'm used to answering reviews on FIA, so that's what I'm going to do here too. ;) I'm not sure EXACTLY sure why I set this in the Forbidden Forest, but I think it had a lot to do with trying to think about how mistletoe could be a natural part of the fic. And it does grow on really ancient oaks, and was sacred to the Druids. And that camp sounds like a lot of fun. :)

As far as Draco's motivations... I think that he isn't exactly sure himself what they all are. The way I see Draco at this point is that in some ways, he's wise far beyond his years- he's had a certain upbringing as a Malfoy that has never really allowed him to be a normal child or teenager, he's always had the weight of expectations on him, and the events of his sixth year are devastating. But OTOH, in some ways, he's very much a teenage boy- and he has Ginny alone with him in a secluded lodge in the forest. So his hormones are taking over too. I think it's very complex.

And if anybody hasn't read previous Anisefics... the Crystal Palace pureblood initiation referred to is Anisecanon. ;) BTW, just so everyone knows, this chapter doesn't get beyond a PG rating, but some things are referred to, let's just say...

CHAPTER FOUR

They had kissed before, of course, every time they'd managed to meet in secret. But those kisses had been secret and hurried, with never enough time to begin to savor them.

This one was different. They had all the time in the world, and because of it, nothing was the same.

Draco pressed his lips to Ginny's, softly, teasingly, no need to rush. She started to make little impatient sounds and moved her neck forward, her head towards his.

"Ah, ah," he chided in a whisper, and he continued the light, tender kisses, like the wings of tiny butterflies around her lips. Finally, she growled and almost lunged towards him, her mouth powerful and fiery, demanding response. His control slipped away swiftly, and he kissed her harder, deeper, his breath coming harsher, rolling from his side so that he was lying half on top of her, clutching her hands in his.

There was nothing outside this room, this afternoon, the sanctuary of the dark red curtains drawn around them, the place that was perhaps not quite in the same time and space as the world outside the walls of the lodge. There was only this bed where Ginny Weasley lay in his arms, kissing him, being kissed by him, all without the fear that they might be discovered. In that moment, Draco had no fears at all.

He could enjoy the sensations of merely being a sixteen-year-old boy with a pretty girl in his arms. He almost never felt like he supposed a teenager ought to feel, young and careless and carefree. His classmates often seemed like children to him; he was weighed down by responsibilities that even other Slytherins could not understand, torn by currents and cross currents of conflicting loyalties. He felt older than his father, older than the Dark Lord. As old as his grandfather, when Abraxas Malfoy had whispered in his ear to trust no-one… except, perhaps, Ginny Weasley.

And now she was here with him, and he did not care, in that moment, if he was anywhere else ever again.

Her hands went over, up, around his back, holding his waist and then sliding down to his hips, over his trousers. The urge to touch her in return was so powerful that Draco could not have resisted if he'd tried. The deep curve of her waist, then moving around to the front, feeling her taut abdomen under her blouse, then moving up, up, and feeling the luscious curves of her breasts on his fingertips, in another moment he would move his hands up further still and get that blouse off her and then—

Ginny stiffened.

Draco stopped, knowing that he had to do so, no matter how impossible it seemed. For a few moments, he couldn't speak, his hands knotting into fists on either side where he had been supporting his weight just above Ginny's body. They'd somehow shifted position so that he was lying fully on top of her, and he'd been nudging her legs apart with one knee without even realizing he was doing it. When he looked down at her face, her eyes were wide, and her gaze was flicking up and down.

He'd moved too fast, and he'd frightened her. Draco closed his eyes and took deep breaths.

"Do you want me to stop?" he asked, choking on the words.

"I don't know. Not exactly, but… " Ginny looked troubled.

He could take that uncertain, guarded look off her face, he knew, if he could just convince her to give him a chance; he could replace it with nothing but pleasure... but first, he would need to persuade her. He knew that if he simply started groping at her in places where they'd never ventured before, she would not accept his actions.

"I mean, I'm not saying no, Draco, I'm really not. But…" She seemed to be gathering her thoughts.

It would be best to say nothing, to let her work it out by herself, he realized. He slid a little bit away from her, moving back onto his side so that they were very closer but he was no longer on top of her.

"It's just that we've never done that before," said Ginny, sighing. She rolled onto her side so that she faced him. "I mean, not really. The last time we met, I suppose we did start, but there wasn't really time."

"And it wasn't the place," said Draco.

"No, it certainly wasn't. Anybody could've found us. We're just lucky that nobody did."

"That won't happen now, though," said Draco. "We're alone, and no-one even knows where are."

Her face grew more troubled, and he suddenly knew what to say.

"Ginny, we don't need to go a bit further," said Draco, forcing himself to stay still with what felt like unbearable effort, making no move towards touching her at all. "We'll stop now and simply lie here until the storm dies down, if you'd like."

"I didn't say I wanted *that*." Ginny shook her head. The tension was leaving her body; her shoulders were relaxing. Draco understand that what he had said was exactly what she needed to hear.

"We'll only do what you like," he whispered. "No more. But you'd love this."

"What do you mean by 'this', exactly?" she asked.

Was there a slight smile on her face? Yes, he decided. There was.

He reached up to stroke the base of her neck, his hand moving down, his fingers resting on the top of the thin blouse she wore beneath her green jumper. It had somehow come off in the middle of their passionate kissing and lay behind her on the bed in a tangle. "Let me see you," he murmured. "Let me touch you, Ginny."

She was silent for a moment, and then she said one of the last things he would have expected. "You're rather experienced, aren't you? It's all right. You can tell me. I just want to know."

Draco squirmed uncomfortably, caught off guard by her honesty. "Er…" He had no idea how much he ought to say, or to admit, or to conceal, when it came to this point. What Ginny had said was more than true, and yet, from a certain point of view, it wasn't the case at all.

"Come on, Draco; tell me. Are you some sort of expert?" she asked, giving him a sideways glance.

"I don't know about that, but, yes, I'd say that I've had some experience."

"So you know what you're doing?"

"I do," Draco said truthfully.

"Mmm." There was definitely a smile curving her lips now. "I do want you to show me some things, Draco… Just touching, though. And looking. You can look, too. But that's all. For now."

*For now.* Those words sent a bolt of sensation through his entire body. "Of course," he said.

Draco took her other hand in his, tracing her palm with a fingernail. His other hand lingered at the top of her blouse. "You've wanted these… *things*, Ginny," he said, deliberately keeping his words vague, just as she had. 'You've wanted to do more than we have done so far. Right?"

She nodded, a faint pink stain spreading over her cheeks. "I don't know how much, though," she mumbled.

"I can show you as much as you like." Draco moved back towards her, kissing her neck, moving his lips up to tease under her ear in a spot that he knew was particularly sensitive. "Do you like that?"

"Yes," she said, letting her eyes close.

He would have to move carefully with her now, he knew. He felt her nervousness, her unease. He was much more experienced than she was, and even if she actually wanted everything that he did, he would need to move slowly. Draco had no idea how far he could go with her, how much she would accept. Or much he had the right to take, the voice of his conscience whispered to him. Draco was able to keep that voice silent most of the time, but it always seemed to grow louder when he was near Ginny, uncomfortably so.

As he kissed her, Draco made little circles on the skin of her upper chest with his fingers, moving downward, reaching for the top button of her blouse and slipping it through the buttonhole. The fabric gaped at her neck a few inches. He undid the second button, and the third. Ginny made a small, startled noise, but she made no move to stop him, and he waited for a moment. He could see a tantalizing glimpse of lace and silky cloth if he peered down the blouse now. How could she afford such pretty lingerie, he wondered, in an attempt, to keep his mind from unravelling completely, which it was threatening to do. Had she gone to the trouble of borrowing it so that he could see it? The thought was exciting, but then, everything was exciting. Her soft caught breathing, her nearness, her warmth, her openness to him, all of it.

"This is all right?" he murmured, keeping his hands where they were.

"Yes…" sighed Ginny.

Draco went on to undo the next button, and the next, and finally the blouse fell completely open. He saw the blue silk bra trimmed with lace, the swell of her breasts spilling over the lace trim. The sight of the soft, freckled mounds was devastating. He wanted, *needed* to see more, to touch her, to—

Ginny's breathing became louder, shallow and too fast, and Draco fought to pull back, to regain control.

"This is still all right?" he asked.

She nodded wordlessly.

Draco moved closer, one hand stroking her shoulder, pushing the blouse back and down her arms. He traced the lines of her bare back, the dip of her slender waist, the curve of her hip. "Do you like this?" he murmured in her ear.

"Yes," she whispered.

"We'll only do what you like, remember," he whispered back. "No more than that."

He mapped out the curves of her back and waist and shoulders for a long time, his fingers lingering on the back hooks of the brassiere. The temptation to flick them open and draw down the straps, to see her bare breasts, to hold them in his hands; the pull was almost unbearable, but he knew that he had to control it. Doing that much would only frighten her now, and she'd likely want him to stop.

Ginny was smiling and beginning to relax in his arms; he knew that she was letting her guard down. Probably never a wise move around me, he could not help thinking. He didn't want to manipulate Ginny now. Or more accurately, he *wanted* to not want that. But he couldn't quite help it…

Draco bent forward and kissed her slowly, gently, as if trying to make up for the thoughts he could not help having.

"I didn't know it would be like this," murmured Ginny.

"Like what?" He moved down to kiss her jaw. She shivered.

"Oooh… you're making it hard to think, you know… I didn't know you would go so slowly. That you'd be so patient."

"Of course I am," said Draco. "That's what you like, isn't it? What you need?"

"Yes, it is, Draco, but… I didn't think… well, all the girls say that…"

He grinned. "Which girls, exactly? And what do they say?"

"You know." She squirmed. "The girls I know who've had sex. They say that boys just take what they want, that it's over in a few minutes and that's fine with them. They don't want to take time."

"I'm not like that," murmured Draco. He wanted badly to return to running his hands along her back and then slowly start moving them around to the front, but this seemed like a bad moment to start again. She seemed to be impressed with his control, after all.

"I should have known," said Ginny, smiling at him. "I mean, you had that pureblood initiation this summer, right?"

He almost choked. "I… you… Ginny, how do you know anything about that?"

She giggled. "Girls talk about those things, or weren't you listening to what I just said? Everyone says that you're practically the only boy who had one last summer, that the old tradition is almost never followed anymore. So is it true?"

"Er.. yes, it's true," he mumbled, not quite able to look at her for the moment. The month-long initiation into all the sensual arts at the infamous Crystal Palace, the oldest house of pleasure in the wizarding world, had once been a very long-standing tradition for sixteen-year-old pureblood boys. But like many other traditions, it had fallen away, until the Malfoys were one of the few families who still followed it.

"So you did have it," said Ginny, her voice delighted. "What exactly did you learn?"

Draco closed his eyes tightly for a second as the sense-memory of everything he had learned rushed through his head like a dark, powerful river. "Ah… quite a lot."

"Did you have an expert courtesan picked out just for you? And did she really stay with you for a month?"

"Yes, and yes," said Draco, deciding that honesty was the best policy here.

A satisfied smile spread across her face. "Pretty much all the girls at Hogwarts would kill to know that for sure."

"Well, you're the only one who does know," said Draco.

She raised a dark red eyebrow. "Oh? I would've thought all the Slytherin girls would know by now, through first hand experience."

Did he hear a trace of jealousy in her voice? Draco hoped so.

"No," said Draco. "They wouldn't."

"But haven't you had sex with loads of other girls by now?" asked Ginny. Her voice seemed to hold no more than simple curiousity.

"I wasn't allowed to touch a girl before the initiation," he said, feeling his way, unsure of exactly where all of this curiosity was leading or how to turn it to his own advantage. "Only a bit of snogging."

"All right, but what about afterwards?" She rolled her eyes. "I'm sure every girl at school, well, the Slytherins, anyway, wanted to find out what you'd be like in bed after all that experience."

"They did," Draco said truthfully. "But I wasn't about to share it with them." He stroked the side of her face. "I only wanted you."

Her golden eyes widened. He knew instantly that he was on the right track.

"You mean that after we… uh, after we started, well, things.." Her voice trailed off.

"I haven't touched any other girl," he said, and again, he told the truth.

Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes. "I didn't know."

"Well, now you do. There's been only that one woman in my initiation. I've never chosen anyone else."

He had said exactly the right thing; he knew it at once by the softened, almost awed look on her face. She believed that he had waited for her. And that fact, he realized, just might mean that she would want to give him *everything* he'd waited for. That he'd be able to convince her to do it. He hadn't dreamed he'd get an opening like this.

But, wait…

Hadn't he in fact waited for her, without even realizing it? Draco had had more than enough chances to expand his experience at school; Ginny was certainly right when she said that the Slytherin girls had all been intrigued by the fact that he'd undergone the legendary initiation, and they weren't the only ones. Yet somehow, he'd never taken advantage of any of those chances. He'd certainly planned to do it, and Pansy Parkinson had been waiting for him on the night when he'd run into Ginny outside the Room of Requirement. But then this strange, indefinable thing had sprung up between them, and there had only been Ginny, and no time or opportunity to do almost anything with her that he so desperately wanted to do.

Draco no longer understood his own motivations, struggling to sort out manipulation from desire from that soft, tender feeling that tore through his chest whenever he looked at Ginny's face. The sort of feeling that he could not afford to have, not during that terrible year.

Ginny was tracing small circles on his chest with her forefinger. "Well—I haven't either," she said, her head bent.

"You haven't…" began Draco. "Do you mean—"

"I mean that you've still done quite a bit more than I have," said Ginny, brushing the smooth planes of his lean muscles.

"You're still a virgin?" he asked.

She looked aside, blushing slightly. "Yes."

He put a finger under her chin, tipping her head up. "I'm glad." And he was, glad and perhaps even a bit surprised. Many Slytherin girls were already rather experienced by her age. But Ginny had waited, and in some part of himself, he believed that she had waited for him, although he would never ask.

She reached up and drew his head down to hers, kissing him again, and he slid into the sweetness of her lips, the sheer pleasure of savoring her, of not needing to rush. Something had changed between them, some indefinable thing, and she seemed more soft and open and ready than she ever had done to him. And he couldn't think in a calculating way of how much easier it would be now to manipulate her into having sex with him, even though he'd been considering that very idea not long before. It seemed a little cold and repulsive now.

TBC...


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially Boogum, PlutoniumBunny, and R3.0. :)

Okay, the rating is upped here a tad, although again, this just doesn't get too explicit. And Draco has a LOT of turmoil in his head at this point. Enjoy! :)

CHAPTER FIVE

She was pressing closer to him, and her breasts began to brush his chest. His hands moved to the fastenings of her brassiere in back without a shed of rational thought driving his movements.

"Draco… I… " Ginny whispered.

"I want to take this off you," he said thickly into her ear.

She was silent for a moment, and then she nodded assent. His hands were already moving on the hooks on the satin and lace in back, undoing them, one by one, slipping the straps down her shoulders, until at last the bra came off and her breasts sprang free, round and firm. He slipped his hands around, and at last, at last he was doing what he had wanted to do for so long, cupping her bare breasts in his hands, feeling the soft responsive skin, circling his fingertips round and round her pink nipples until they rose like raspberry gumdrops. He felt her heart beating an uneasy tattoo, and he knew without being told that she was scared and excited all at once.

Draco's hands paused. "Do you want me to stop?" he murmured.

"No,"she whispered, and he went on and on touching her, exploring her, savoring her response. He traced the most sensitive bits, listening to the pitch of her moans, watching her flushed face and feeling her hands around his back under his shirt, smoothing his skin.

But she was still shy, unsure, and her touch was tentative. His was not. He understood in a flash what that meant, and he wanted to groan in frustration.

He knew what came next, knew it thoroughly, inside and out, whereas she only knew what she'd been told, what she'd read, what the girls in the Gryffindor dormitory had whispered about in the middle of the night. He understood the pleasure she would feel if they continued, and the incredible pleasure that she would give him. She did not.

A cold thought flashed through his mind, from the manipulative part of himself that he could not stop, could not get rid of. And indeed, he didn't want to get rid of it, because this endless afternoon would end, and then he would need all the guilt and manipulation he could muster if he had any hope of surviving this terrible year.

Draco knew that he could use his greater knowledge against her—no, no, not _against_ Ginny, exactly, but he could use it to get what he wanted from her. One thing could lead to another, and she would be lost in a haze of pleasure while that small part of him remained detached, plotting how to bring him the greatest satisfaction, how to win the prize that he already knew deep down she didn't really want to give up to him yet...

Draco licked at her nipples with all his skill, nibbling lightly, letting the sound of her moans guide his movements. When her eyes were closed, he trailed one hand down her abdomen while the other cupped around one of her breasts, holding it up to his mouth so that the nipple was defenseless and exposed; he suckled harder and harder and she made whimpering noises in her throat. She didn't seem to notice that one of his hands was steadily pulling up her skirt, unbuttoning the waistband in front, then moving the loose cloth aside to lie on the bed around her.

She shivered, and he swiftly pulled a blanket up and partially draped it over them both so that the cold didn't awaken her from the sensual web he was weaving around her.

Nearly all of her clothing was stripped off now, lying around her or behind her or tangled up in the covers. She wore only a pair of black cotton knickers, not as pretty as the silk and lace bra. A quick, unwelcome thought darted through his mind; she hadn't planned to go this far, to show him this much. But the blood was thudding through his body, making rational thought impossible; he could only devour Ginny with his eyes, and it was taking all his control to not grab crudely at her near-naked body. She was so beautiful, slim but muscular from all the Quidditch she played, her bottom pertly rounded to match her full breasts, her long slender legs exposed and stretched out against the red silk sheets, her skin creamy and pale in the faint firelight.

 _Mine._ The word drifted through his mind. It was wrong, the word, that possessive way of thinking, and some part of him knew it. But anything resembling a conscience in the mind of Draco Malfoy was a very small part at that moment.

Her eyelashes fluttered. "Draco?" she asked, sounding confused. "What—"

"Shh, shh," he said, leaning down to kiss her, squeezing one of her nipples between the powerful thumb and forefinger of one muscular hand.

Her moan turned into a squeak, and he backed off the pressure just the tiniest bit until she was sighing low in pleasure again.

He was drowning in pleasure, swamped by it, never wanting to return to the surface. He took delight in her pleasure too. But still, that calculating part of himself kept thinking, kept weighing possibilities. He wished that he could make it stop, in a distant way. _But I can't._ He knew deep down that he might have managed to do it if he'd tried, but that he was too deeply sunk in bliss to make the attempt.

 _But—but does she actually want to go this far with me, does she want me to lead her into these things?_ The tiny voice of his conscience tried to speak.

 _Shh. I'll make her so happy; she'll love this, she'll give me what I need and in return I'll give her more pleasure than she can imagine,_ the much larger manipulative part said, and his conscience was easily silenced.

Could he distract her enough for his next move?

 _I'll do this. She'll love this. I only want to make you happy, Ginny._

Both thoughts moved in his head like separate selves, both wanting the same thing. He brought up his other hand and began lightly scratching at her other nipple with a fingernail.

"Oh!" she gasped.

"That doesn't hurt, does it?"

"No… no."

Scratch, squeeze; scratch, squeeze. Her moans were so mingled with whimpers that he could not distinguish them anymore. He replaced one set of fingers with his mouth, and when her eyelashes were fluttering, his hand moved down her abdomen again. His fingers trailed down further and further, skimming over her taut stomach. He moved closer to her and then closer still, very gently nudging her thighs apart with a knee, sliding half on top of her.

Ginny gasped, her eyelashes fluttering as if she were being pulled out of a feverish dream, and he realized why, just a bit too late. His hips had moved so that the length of his erection was pressed completely against her inner thigh, bottom to near the top. His trousers were halfway down around his calves; he wasn't even sure how that had happened, and she had clearly felt every inch of his tremendous arousal.

"Shh. Shh." He moved up to kiss her neck, and with a sigh, she let her eyes fall closed again. He looked down at Ginny. Every inch of her exposed skin was flushed a light pink in the firelight. Her entire body was trembling, her breasts bobbing in a way that he could barely endure to watch without seizing her in his arms. She was caught up in the moment, just as he was, except… except for that small calculating part of him, the one that was always present in every Malfoy, he supposed. Most of him at that moment was a sixteen-year-old boy at the mercy of his hormones, swamped by blind need. But there was still that one little bit, calculating, watching, weighing options.

All of him wanted the same thing just now, of course. To go on. To finish what they'd begun. It would be so easy. He was lying half on top of her now; he could just swing his body into place. He could pull down his boxers and her knickers with a couple of swift movements. In that second, he could see it all; her eyelashes fluttering open with alarm, his soothing kisses, her relaxation and acceptance, because she wasn't experienced enough to realize what he would be doing. And then, with one good, hard thrust between her spread thighs, he would do the irrevocable thing, taking what she could never get back. And once he'd done that, it would be too late to stop.

How strange that it would be so easy to take or break so many things—not just her virginity, but her trust in him, his promise to her, the secrets he'd been careful to keep between them. Once he'd been her first lover, she would be bound to him in ways that he was sure she did not understand, ways that only practicing purebloods knew, not the ones like the Weasleys, who had turned their back on the most ancient magic.

Yes, all of him wanted her desperately; for pleasure, for the satisfaction Draco craved, for the power he desired even more. And perhaps more than anything else, to keep her with him. If he took her virginity, he could make her stay with him; he knew it. He would whisper all the secrets to her that he kept from everyone else. She would soothe the fears that he thought might drive him mad. And he could keep her safe, too. If Death Eaters really did take over the school at the end of the year, everyone would be in danger. But he could save Ginny.

 _I could use her. I could save her. I could trust her. I need her. I have to have her_ , Draco thought, with passion and calculation and yearning, all of it at once, impossible to separate.

"Draco?" Ginny's voice broke in on his thoughts. He looked down at her again, and he saw that she was frightened.

 _She doesn't want this._ He knew that truth at once, bone-deep. If he continued, he could not fool himself into thinking that she'd really been willing. What he did would be without her consent.

But he could continue. He could get away with it. He could even convince her afterwards that she had wanted him to do what he did, that he hadn't understood that she really wanted him to stop, that he'd been overcome by passion for her, so how could she be angry with him, that he was hurt by the fact that she'd even think he would have taken her without her consent…

But he would know. He would always know.

Draco's conscience bobbed to the surface of his mind, as it always seemed to do at the worst possible moment. _I cannot do this,_ he thought. And in that moment, he would have done anything to make the little voice go away.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers. And don't be scared! This really isn't dark D/G. But if Ginny and Draco really were together in any way during his sixth year… and that's a scenario that I've always secretly loved… then I think that this kind of dynamic would have to be there. He was under too much pressure, too much torment, to just skip around being a happy boyfriend. Just wait and see how it all plays out… ;)

And happy new year! J

Chapter Six

Ginny looked up at him with troubled eyes. "Draco…"

He fought to hold onto some shred of control. He'd spent months over the summer doing just that, during his Cruciatus lessons with his dear aunt Bellatrix. Draco had learned much about how to control pain and anger and a desperate desire to bolt out the room as fast as he could, to run and keep running until he left Malfoy Manor and everyone in it too far behind him to ever find again, because he knew he could never run that far. But he hadn't learned how to control pleasure that went wrong, or actions that ran into the immutable wall of what his partner wanted or didn't want.

"I don't know if I want to do this," she said, taking a deep breath.

 _I don't know_. Well, at least Ginny hadn't given him a flat no. Perhaps there was still some way to salvage this.

"Did you like what I was doing to— _for_ you?" he asked her.

"Yes," she said.

He reached down and caressed her neck, being careful to not go down any further. "Doesn't that feel good?"

"Of course it does," she said.

Draco slid his hand down the curve of her waist, stopping at the side of one hip. "Wouldn't you like me to show you just a bit more?"

She sighed, her face suddenly shifting into the distance somehow, and she looked far away from him. He wanted to drag her back.

"I'll only touch you, Ginny," he whispered. "I won't even take your knickers off. Just spread your legs a bit. You'll love this; you can't imagine how much you will love what I'm going to show you next."

She shook her head, but he had the strange feeling that she was responding to some thought process inside her head rather than what he was saying.

He was impatient. He couldn't help it. He was only sixteen years old, and his hormones were driving him blindly onward. And to make matters worse, he hadn't touched a girl in months and knew exactly what he was missing. And he'd done it for her. Couldn't Ginny appreciate this? Couldn't she understand how much he needed her?

"You've never done this part before either, have you? Is that why you're afraid?" asked Draco, trying to sound calm.

"I'm not afraid. I'm not! But…"She shifted her eyes away from him, and it seemed to Draco that she had a strange, faraway, glazed look.

"Someone tried once," she said. "It almost happened."

"You didn't want it?"

Slowly, she shook her head.

"Who was it? How did it happen, Ginny?"

Ginny only shook her head. Again. She seemed impossibly far away, as if her soul had suddenly fled, leaving her body behind with a tiny bit of consciousness in it, and she, whoever Ginny really was, had almost entirely gone. Draco could feel impatience bolting through him

"All right, don't tell me. But whatever happened then, it's in the past. We're talking about now, and you want this," said Draco. "You like the way I make you feel. You want to find out what comes next, and you know I can show you, more thoroughly than you can imagine."

"I believe you, I do, but…" Ginny seemed unable to stop shaking her head.

She wasn't going to explain. He would have listened if she did; he was sure of it, but she wasn't even going to try, and he could not help irritation from bolting through him. _This is more than I can handle now_ , he thought.

"Don't you think you're being a bit ridiculous then?" he asked her.

"No, I'm not."

He wanted to be sensitive, he wanted to understand her, but too many parts of him could not. Draco was wise beyond his years in some ways, emotionally stunted in others, and he was then trapped in terrible expectations that nobody at Hogwarts could possibly have understood, even if he'd been able to tell them. Often, he felt as if he were going mad. Ginny had begun to seem like his lifeline to sanity, but she seemed so far away from him now. As if his grasp would go right through her. He desperately wanted to bring her back, by any means necessary.

"I can give you pleasure that you've never had," whispered Draco. "Do you doubt that?"

"No, I don't. I know you can do it. It's just… look, I didn't come here planning on shagging you!" She looked at him directly, her golden eyes seeming to pierce all his secrets. "That's what you thought I was going to do. Didn't you?"

In the glare of those eyes, he could not lie, even to himself.

He swung off her body, rolling to one side. "I've done nothing wrong," he said sullenly, not quite answering her. His body didn't seem to understand that a roadblock had sprung between him and the satisfaction he craved, and the desire he felt was maddening.

"I didn't say you had," said Ginny. "But you need to understand that I know what you're trying to do."

"You don't know anything about need, Ginny," he said in a voice very like a snarl. "What I _need_ is—" He was able to stop himself from finishing the sentence the way that the worst part of his nature wanted to do.

 _I need you to tear those damn knickers off and spread your legs for me, Ginny, and let me lose myself in you before I go mad and burst apart and crawl away crying like a child, crying that I can't do what I've been ordered to do, that I can't kill, that I can't become a murderer or be murdered myself! I need to forget, I've got to forget. You can give me that forgetfulness. You. Nobody else._

She stared at him, and in that awful moment, he was sure that he had said the words aloud, that he had spoken the unspeakable. The gods knew that it was all true. His hormones were driving him forward, crying out for release, for a mindless afternoon of forgetfulness in Ginny Weasley's body, for the consuming rush of physical satisfaction that would make the terrible strain go away; no, nothing could manage that trick, but mindless pleasure that would lift him on a sensual cloud above the horror of it all, even if only for a few hours. He needed Ginny to simply offer herself to him, without hesitation, without scruples, without questions and complexities, to allow him to do exactly what he needed to do, to sate himself on her body and the consequences and the future for either of them be damned.

Draco would one day understand just how desperately unfair he had been to her, expecting her to give up her virginity to him without getting anything in return, without promises, without bonds, without plans, with nothing but pleasure. It was not something that he should have expected any girl to do, but especially not Ginny.

But at that time, he could not sort out any of those ideas. He only knew that he was desperate, throbbing for her, burning for her, at the mercy of his need, and she did not, would not, could not understand why this was so.

So Draco said the worst thing that he could have said, although with no understanding of what he was doing.

"You're being a silly little girl," he said coldly.

Ginny stiffened as if she had suddenly frozen, as if she had been cast out into the storm outside. But her voice was hot with fury. "What did you say?"

She was responding to him. She was returning. He was goaded on.

"I said you were being silly, and you are. I promised to stop whenever you asked me to, and I have, haven't I? And now I want to go just a bit further, to show you how much pleasure I can give you, and you won't even let me do that!"

"Like I said, I didn't exactly agree to have sex with you today. I was just going to meet you in the forest," she said. She sounded angrier, but still a bit distant, and he was driven to make her angrier still, if that was what it took to get her to respond to him. He had to have her respond to him. He had to prove that he himself was real. Let her scream at him, yell, punch him, anything. As long as she didn't keep staring at him so fiercely, yet as if he were a million miles away from a prison where she was locked inside her own mind.

"Look, we won't actually shag; this isn't the same," said Draco. "You must know that. You can't be as innocent as all that. I'd only be touching you."

"That's not all you want from me, though, is it?" said Ginny.

"I haven't done anything you don't want," said Draco, knowing that he was not answering her question. "I told you that I would stop if you asked me to do so, and I have, haven't I? Even though you're being ridiculous, even though you're not giving me anything I need, I'm hardly forcing myself on you, am I?"

She turned her head back to him, her face flushed. "Look, I'm not here to serve you, Draco! I'm not some sort of bed-elf. Oh, I've heard about those too; all Zabini does is brag about his."

She was right about that. Well, at least she was talking to him now.

"I'm not Zabini," said Draco. "He'd give a lot to be in my place right now, though. And do you really think he'd be so considerate?" He was being unfair to Blaise Zabini, and he knew it; the boy was a poser with a kind heart that he loved to hide beneath a flippant exterior, but at that moment, Draco did not care.

"No, probably not. But that doesn't change the fact that you want more from me, and you want it right now," she said, accusingly, sadly, as if her words really meant something else, although he was in no shape to work out what that was.

"All right—I do!" He threw up his hands. "Of course I do. Did you really expect anything else?" he blustered. Once again, he'd said the wrong thing, but he could not stop himself now. "You're beautiful, Ginny, you're in bed with me, you've been happy to let me take off all your clothes until you're wearing nothing more than knickers. You're moaning with pleasure when I touch your breasts! And are you planning to stay a virgin for the rest of your life? I can show you what sex can be. Can you honestly say you don't want that, not at all, not even a bit?"

"But then what?" Ginny demanded, sitting up halfway and propping herself on her elbows. "Let's say I go all the way with you. What happens once we get back to Hogwarts? Are we going to start eating breakfast together at the same table? Talking to each other while we walk around the lake holding hands? Are we going to wave to all my friends, to my brother, to Harry?"

The mention of Harry's name goaded him as nothing else. "Oh, Potter," he sneered. "Of course. I should have guessed you'd be worried about what _he'd_ think above all else."

"Don't change the subject, Draco Malfoy!" Her eyebrows swooped together into one angry auburn line. " Why don't you admit it? You expect me to just give you my virginity without knowing what's going to happen next, if you're going to speak me again, if we'll be able to meet again, if anything will happen between us again? And without telling me anything about what's actually going on with you this year?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Draco weakly.

She laughed. "I think you do."

 _Oh gods. Oh no._ He was instantly on alert. "You don't need to know, Ginny; you couldn't understand." How much did she know? _Nothing, she can't know anything, and that's the way it's got to stay._

"Because I'm just a silly little girl, is that it?" she laughed harshly.

Something about the phrase was triggering her. He realized it. But he did not know what to do about it now.

"Look, I—" Draco ran his fingers through his hair, putting it all on end. "Yes. There are certain… pressures on me. Can't I have one single afternoon's relief from them?"

Ginny's set her jaw, the muscle jumping behind her skin. "Not if it means that you're expecting me to have sex with you while keeping all these secrets from me. You know, Draco, you know what that would mean to me!"

Draco kept silent. He did have a fair idea of what she was driving at. Purebloods who had turned their backs on the old ways, families like the Weasleys, had also adopted prim sexual standards to set themselves apart from the decadent old guard like the Malfoys and the Zabinis and the Parkinsons. That was why he would never have expected a Slytherin girl to be as inexperienced as Ginny was. And that was also why it was desperately unfair to expect her to give herself to him when he could give her nothing in return. In her heart, he knew that this fact cut to the core of the conflict between them.

"What do you expect me to do?" asked Draco, his voice quiet.

"You could start by telling me a few of those secrets," said Ginny. She sighed, and the rigid set on her shoulders lessened a little. "Help me to understand. If you'd just tell me what you're going through... Don't keep it all from me."

This wasn't the way he'd wanted it at all, not the scenario he'd earlier pictured. Yes, perhaps he could unburden himself to her in the end, but he had to have her first, to bind her to him in a way that nobody else could ever do again, and in return, he would confide in her. But she expected him to confess his secrets to her without giving up anything in return. For all Draco knew, she would turn on him in horror, jump out of the bed, and run screaming out into the storm wrapped in nothing but a blanket before she even knew a tenth of all the secrets he could tell her. That was what he could not do.

"I need this, Ginny," said Draco, hearing his own voice speaking coldly and distantly.

That had been exactly the wrong thing to say. It was as if he also hovered above the scene as his older self, one who was horrified to look back and see what a fool he'd been at the age of sixteen. But in the present, he pressed on.

"Can't you just let me have some relief, some release? Can't you give that to me, Ginny?"

"If that's all you want, then you're going to have to get it from someone else," she said. "I'm sure Pansy Parkinson would be happy to oblige."

"Yes, she would," he retorted. "She's made the offer many times." As indeed, Pansy had. Draco had turned her down, perhaps because she was a friend, and he would not risk their friendship in that way. The thought made him angrier than ever.

"Then go to her," said Ginny, moving a bit further away, her back rigid against the headboard. "I'm sure she won't expect you to tell her anything."

"No, she wouldn't. But she's not here, and I don't want her. And you're the one who expects me to simply tell you all my secrets, Ginny," said Draco. The words came out as more hurt than angry.

"Well, you expect me to just have sex with you so that you can get an afternoon's relief from keeping all those secrets. And it doesn't seem to be anything more than that," said Ginny, sounding sad. Her face was sad too, more sad than angry, and that made him pause, even in the middle of his anger and confusion and thwarted lust.

He could storm out. But he would shatter any fragile chance he'd ever had with Ginny Weasley if he did so. If he proclaimed that he was leaving in order to have sex with some other girl, and then actually did it, whatever he and Ginny had would be ruptured beyond hope of repair. And he understood that he desperately did not want that to happen.

Draco swallowed hard. "Ginny… you don't want to know." He reached out across the expanse of coverlet that separated them and almost touched her hands with his. "if I could tell anyone living, I would tell you. But I can't. You're better off not knowing."

She laughed bitterly. "That isn't the first time I've heard those words today."

What do you mean?" he asked cautiously.

"You think you're the only one keeping secrets from me? You're not." Her mouth twisted. "And I'm about tired of it."

Ice crisped down Draco's spine. He felt suddenly very cold, even though he was wrapped in blankets. Whatever Ginny meant, this was what she had been talking about earlier. And even though he'd always been rubbish at divination or precognition or telling the future in any way, he had a very, very bad feeling about what she was going to say next.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially brianaangel, boogum, dwellingindreams, PlutoniumBunny, R3.0, and all the rest! :)

CHAPTER SEVEN

But Ginny did not speak immediately, and Draco began to feel some pangs of real anxiety. He finally decided that letting the silence drag on was worse than saying something, but he kept his voice as careful and low as he was able to do. "What are you talking about, Ginny?"

She laughed again, a short, sharp, bitter sound. "Why should I explain? It's not as if you're telling me anything."

"But you want to tell someone, don't you?" Draco asked with a sudden, shrewd realization. "Or you wouldn't have said anything at all."

Ginny took several seconds to reply. She sat up fully and crossed her legs so that she was sitting opposite him, and she wrapped the coverlet firmly around her chest so that it looked like a red sleeveless dress. Her eyes were challenging when they met his. "Tell me one thing about what's really going on with you right now. Just one, Draco. Then I'll tell you."

Oh, Gods. Draco pulled the blanket around his shoulders, searching his mind for the least incriminating detail he could think of. "My mother is desperately unhappy just now," he said. It was certainly the truth.

"Because your father's in Azkaban?" Her voice had softened just a bit.

"That's part of it," said Draco. "But it's more." He would not tell her everything that made up his mother's unhappiness, of course, or even close to it. "Not all of my father's… er… acquaintances are in Azkaban, and they won't leave us alone, or go away. They're' filling our home." He shuddered.

"So you don't like that?" asked Ginny. "Because it's an inconvenience, I suppose."

Her tone stung him. "What, do you think that the Manor doesn't have enough guest rooms, or they're using too many towels? No. It's because I despise all of them."

"Really?" Her voice was softer now.

"Really. I want to cast an Incendiary hex on each and every one. My mother hates it as well; she's retreated to the west wing of the house and scarcely comes out. I want them all gone because I loathe them."

When Ginny spoke, her voice was very soft. "Are they Death Eaters who didn't go to Azkaban."

"Some of them, and the rest are sympathizers." Draco stared into the near-darkness of the room, seeing not the dark wooden panels but the tight, cold face of his mother, like a piece of fine china barely held together and on the point of shattering. "I hate them all. I would be happy to never come within miles of any of them again."

"So you don't want to be like them?" Her voice was like a small, gentle piece of his buried conscience.

"No," he said honestly.

Ginny was silent then, her head bent so that he could only see the golden highlights in her hair when the firelight flickered. That gave him time to think about what he had said. It was much more than he'd intended.

He had planned to say nothing meaningful; it had all begun as a way to convince her to tell him what she knew, but as he spoke, the meaning of the words changed. Draco had never been sure that he really did want what the Death Eaters offered; there was a time when he had almost managed to convince himself that he did, but as time passed, he understood that he would have much rather had nothing to do with any of it. But what Ginny had asked him was something quite different. He might not have wanted to serve the Dark Lord, but did he actively want its opposite? Draco now understood that he had never believed he did. Even when he had got over being tempted by the possibility of power, even when he had realized that its price was too high, he had concentrated only on surviving the ordeals forced on him. And he was not at all sure that he would succeed at that goal.

But what would I actually choose, if the choice were truly mine? he wondered.

Draco no longer knew what he wanted or didn't want. Except the beautiful, troubled girl sitting on a bed with him. He wanted her in some way that he could not define, something far more elusive than sexual desire.

Ginny gave a long sigh. "All right. I'll tell you."

He tuned his head to look at her. He could just see the outline of her profile as she spoke.

"I wasn't actually told any of this, and I certainly didn't see it. So I suppose I can't be completely sure how accurate any of it is, but I think I've at least got at most of the truth."

A cool finger seemed to lay itself on the back of Draco's neck. "What truth is that, Ginny?" he asked.

Ginny did not quite answer his question right away. "I overheard Ron and Hermione whispering to each other in a corridor after breakfast, so I followed them and cast a Silencing charm so they wouldn't hear my footsteps. I was able to hide in a broom closet, and luckily they stood just outside it for several minutes—long enough for me to hear everything they had to say to each other."

Draco could not help smiling. "Sneaking and spying, eh? How very Slytherin of you."

She smiled very faintly in return. "Yes, well, I don't know about that, but I'm quite sure that they didn't know I was there. They'd 'never have carried on talking if they had. So…" She twisted the bottom of the coverlet between her fingers, distorting the elaborate embroidery. With a jolt of alarm, Draco recognized the Malfoy crest, worked in red and gold thread. Not that Ginny seemed likely to notice it, he reassured himself. But there was no reassurance for him just then, and a ripple of dread was rising into his throat.

"So?" he prompted, his voice thinner than he would have liked.

"So, they talked about what had happened the day before. They didn't give all the details, of course. But I could figure it out well enough. Ron was poisoned. He drank some wine that had been meant for Slughorn, or something, and he nearly died. Harry saved him." Her mouth twisted, her lips almost the red shade of the coverlet. "That's what he does best, after all. But I'm glad he was there, more glad than I can say."

Draco could not even react to the mention of Harry's name. He could only sit very still, aching as if his veins were flooded with a worse poison than the one he'd been forced to add to the wine.

That was it. That was what she had been hiding. And he ought to have known.

Her brother, her brother had been caught in that web. He'd had no idea. Draco had known the poisoned wine wouldn't get to Dumbledore, and wouldn't kill him if it did. He'd subtly altered the poison so that it would cause intense discomfort and perhaps illness, but would not prove fatal to anyone. And he'd bet that Slughorn would be the one to divert the wine and drink it himself. He'd enjoyed the thought of the trouble that might cause. The Dark Lord would likely blame Slughorn in that case, the professor who had worked so assiduously on staying out of the conflict entirely, who had dissociated himself from the Death Eaters in every way he could. Draco knew very well that this was the real reason why he hadn't been included in that club of his.

But somehow, Ron Weasley had got hold of it instead.

Ginny was turning to face him. He had been silent too long. Draco realized that his knowledge must show in his face; the careful mask had slipped, as it only seemed to do around Ginny. He knew it, but not in time to stop it, even if he could have, which he later thought was not possible.

"You knew," Ginny said slowly. She pulled back from him, towards the edge of the bed, dragging the coverlet with her like a shield.

"That's mad," said Draco. He could barely get out the words. "How could I have known anything about what happened to your brother?"

"I don't know. But you did know something." She stopped and narrowed her eyes at him. "Do you know who was responsible? That's it. Isn't it. Was it Blaise Zabini? Or Daphne Greengrass? Who?"

There was only one way to fool her, he realized in a flash. He had to convince himself that Blaise or Daphne or someone else, anyone else, really had been responsible. He had to believe it. He conjured the image of someone else's guilt as fast as he could, pretending that he had known and had not dared to tell anyone, and then he let it show on his face.

But he could not. He could not fool her. Whether he couldn't bring himself to do it, or whether he could not manage to do it, he was never sure.

Ginny swallowed hard, her hands clutching the edge of the coverlet. "It's you. Isn't it? You were responsible, Draco. I don't know quite how, but you were."

"I…" He could not finish the sentence. There was nothing to say. There was no way to fool her, so he did not try. He simply sat on the edge of the bed and kept looking at the wall.

"And you're the one who got that cursed necklace to Katie Bell, too," she said flatly. "That's right, isn't it? Nobody could ever figure out how it happened, but that's the answer."

His silence was all the answer she needed.

"It can't be," she murmured. "This can't be true. It… but it is, oh gods, but it is…"

He reached out a hand towards her. She flinched back. "Where's my wand? Where is it?" She scrabbled in the bed but came up empty-handed. "You have it, don't you, Malfoy, you stole it!"

"I haven't touched your wand," he retorted, feeling the sting of his last name on her lips after they'd long moved past the stage of formal address. "It's probably on the floor. You were a bit distracted a few minutes ago, remember?"

Ginny gave a short, sharp laugh. "Oh, I remember, all right!" She kept retreating across the bed, continuing to watch him like a wild animal that she was sure would attack at any moment. She grabbed her blouse and pulled it on, shoving the buttons crookedly through their buttonholes, yanking her sweater back over her head. She pulled her skirt back down to her knees.

Silently, he reached behind him, found his own shirt, and put it on, feeling for his school tie before giving up the search as a bad job, and then took a great deal of time to draw his trousers back up his legs and button them.

At last, she turned to face him. "Oh, gods. Why, why? Can't you just tell me that?"

He could have snapped back at her, could have returned contempt with anger. But the disappointment in her eyes was almost more than Draco could bear.

"I didn't have any choice," he said. "I never did, not at any point. I had nothing against Bell; I wouldn't have seen her hurt. The necklace was never supposed to reach her. And I never thought your brother would be caught up in it."

"Really? I didn't know you cared about either of them. Or anyone except yourself," she flung back at him, starting to get up. He put a hand on her shoulder, trying to hold her back. In response, she reached for her wand, which was, in fact, lying on the tiny bedside table Her eyes blazed. "You'd better let go of me right now, Malfoy!"

He did, of course. But he could still feel her warm skin beneath the fabric; the sensation still tingled on his palm.

"I'm leaving right now," she said. But she did not. She simply stood, looking at him. A word from him now could tip the balance either way, Draco realized.


End file.
